V & J, good read, very good pictars too.
Request? Would your pillion post once in awhile please?

Two up to Panama and back is my dream/goal.

I'm long legged and on Guzzis my knees hit the carbs/manifolds
and on airheads my big feet would tangle with the Bing carbs.
So I'm glad the fix was not a super big deal for you Valentino.
You did reinstall guards.

Downloaded Veins of Latin America to read soon.

Two years ago read Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude.
It too can be had online in pdf.

V & J, good read, very good pictars too.
Request? Would your pillion post once in awhile please?

Two up to Panama and back is my dream/goal.

I'm long legged and on Guzzis my knees hit the carbs/manifolds
and on airheads my big feet would tangle with the Bing carbs.
So I'm glad the fix was not a super big deal for you Valentino.
You did reinstall guards.

Downloaded Veins of Latin America to read soon.

Two years ago read Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude.
It too can be had online in pdf.

Best Regards to you both, OldPete

Hey OldPete, glad to have you along for the ride. If its your dream ride do it, don't wait, you never know what tomorrow holds and regret sucks... I am sure that with the right prep the Guzzi would be great for your trip.

It was an early cold start, yesterday we left Cuenca under rainy skies and by the time we had reach our highest point of the trip at 3459 metres, the mercury had dropped to 9 C, nothing that unusual when you ride all year in the PNW, but it gave us a chance to compassionately think about our family and friends in Montreal who have already suffered -30C this winter.

By lunch time, the sky had cleared up and after a copious parilla for two at the indecent cost of $6.25 including soup and coffee, we hit the twisties of the Ecuadoran altiplanos until we reached the border town of Macara, just 2 km north of the Peruvian crossing.

We had a great time in Ecuador, visited two nice cities; Quito and Cuenca, cross over to the Southern hemisphere. and hit both our highest and coldest point of the trip so far.

The high passes and deep valleys were a blessing to ride through, we are so privileged to be able to ride and enjoy life like there is nothing else to do or think about in the world, then ride on towards the sun setting over the horizon.

Oh yeah and did I already mentioned the cost of living in Ecuador?

Baratisssssssssimo

A few road shots

Watch out for the "derumbes"

To the West

To the East

Over the horizon

Eucalyptus; can you smell it?

Ecuadoran Rottweiler goat

Ferrel pigs

Muchas gracias Ecuador, que chevere ...

__________________
FEAR ===> False Expectation About Reality. GSA08
Work is just the time you have to spend between rides.

[CENTER]
The high passes and deep valleys were a blessing to ride through, we are so privileged to be able to ride and enjoy life like there is nothing else to do or think about in the world, then ride on this the sunsets over the horizon.

well said. that's a great reminder to me to never take this for granted. even when it's raining and i'm riding at 4400m. The sun always comes back out.

I'm just a few days behind you. If the weather is good I'm going to Cajas tomorrow and hopefully camp. Then I'll make my way to Macara and Peru! Buen viaje!

Ride a little further across the puente internacional and you are greeted by a pack of ferocious dog

After braving the dangerous canine, I followed the sign indicating S.O.A.T (Seguro Obligatorio de Accidentes de Tránsito), and came face to face with the insurance issuing officer aka Emilio. I kind of interrupted something important; Emilio was fixing lunch

Within just a few minutes I had one month worth of Peruvian insurance, cost 11.5 times more than in Ecuador

Road a little further to here

Typed and stamped in

Into late Peruvian spring

The Mango-grove

Soon after Into the desert

More to come later from yours truly ........J&V

__________________
FEAR ===> False Expectation About Reality. GSA08
Work is just the time you have to spend between rides.

Parochialism in a cultural sense means that as foreigners travelling in a foreign land, we view the world through our unique lens and perspective. Parochial travellers tend not to recognize the other’s way of living, and limit their experience of the world through a few determined number of reference points.

This is often observed in the reactions the traveller has when they encounter situations that fall well outside their frame of references. The emotional intensity of that experience is either dampened or exacerbated as a function of ones tolerance to ambiguity.

Evidently self-awareness, self-abstraction, and the ability to recognize otherness as simply different than sameness, without the limiting scope of stereotype or prejudice, allows the edge walker to "safely" navigate intercultural spaces while maintaining their sanity.

Asymmetrically a lack of intercultural foresight will have detrimental effects on both the foreigner and the local’s experience of the world, and on each other. The more homogeneous or insular a society, the more this phenomena tends to be true. I aim to respect and learn, observing principals related to tolerance and curiosity wherever I go. As a rule I do not judge what others do, or how others think, it is neither my right nor my prerogative to do so.

Cultural realities apply to all things, food, art, work, family relations, professional relationships, intimacy, how we see the world, nature and our place in it… many argue that most things if not all are cultural. The significance of these cultural specificities are function of the size of the group that abide by them.

Metaphysically this means that values, habits, rules, and behaviours accepted and acceptable within the group are pure. The only guiding principle we can rely on to evolve in our world is morality. Here, I am referring to what we as human beings individually recognize to be universally moral.

I am not referring to various callous forms of morality, themselves justified under the artifice of culture specificity. Religiosity, prejudice, ostracism, and other forms of violence and exclusion based on differences need not apply. Pathologies such as sociopathic and psychopathic behaviours do not fall under the norm or constitute acceptable behaviour in any culture.

Cultural purists will surely disagree with this line of thought. However, I believe that morality trumps culturality, in other words you cannot justify amoral actions by their cultural properties or distinctions. Things like cruelty to… discrimination against… desecration of… etc, etc, etc… examples abound. I believe that we all know the difference between discomfort and pain, regardless if we are causing it or we are the recipients of it.

So what is this all about?

Well simply enough it is about garbage. Litter, rubbish, junk, debris, trash, human waste, and any other epithets you can find to describe what we have been riding through since we have entered Peru. Enough of it to make me ask; is the land of Peru anything more than a Peruvian dump? Waste management, especially what we call domestic by-products of consumption, is, some of the worst I have seen in the world.

Am I hastily judging my Peruvian brothers? Guilty! Maybe just maybe…

We only have been in Peru for a few days, and only have ridden 600 km of it, unfortunately the only thing that comes to mind when reflecting about this recent experience, is what a dump… I am not talking about pollution in general; I am talking specifically about trash, Peruvians trashing Peru.

What or who can justify living in garbage, Peru is not a backward country, it is the world’s 39th economy, and it is on the rise, population hovering 30 millions, literacy rate of 85%. Once part of the proud Inca Empire… I just don’t get it! It is everywhere, it is the landscape, urban and desert, countryside and town squares, garbage, litter, and more crap indiscriminately dumped everywhere. At the entrance of every pueblo and town, behind houses, in ravines, in the desert in the fields, etc, etc, etc…

So who is to blame? Don’t want to play the blame game; ok! No problem! How is it justifiable? Nobody seems to care, people certainly don’t, villages, and small community certainly don’t, municipality certainly don’t, territories certainly don’t, big cities certainly don’t, does not seem that the country itself does.

Blaming consumerism, modernity, misdirected progress is lame at best. Perusing blogs, chronicles and editorials have yielded little in terms of clarification. Mainly what Jackie has been hinting to all along, Peruvians don’t know or don’t appear to care very much about where the junk ends up and the ramification it has on their health and their environment. Hopefully with a median age of 27 and just about half of the population under 24 years old, tomorrow’s Peruvian champions and leaders can learn from the mistakes of their parents and forefathers, and regain some of their land to what it really is.

Sans Poubelles merci

What am I missing, have committed the biggest cultural faux pas of this trip, is there some sort of justification or simple and applicable way ahead?

Help please?

__________________
FEAR ===> False Expectation About Reality. GSA08
Work is just the time you have to spend between rides.

I am aghast as these are pictars of Peru that look like rough areas in Africa or India.
Most of the pics I see posted of Peru are on gravel roads in the Andes and there seems to be little trash there,
might get blown away to lower elevations however.

I am aghast as these are pictars of Peru that look like rough areas in Africa or India.
Most of the pics I see posted of Peru are on gravel roads in the Andes and there seems to be little trash there,
might get blown away to lower elevations however.

Lift your gaze Valentino. Thanks for the update.

Little of this was blown, it was dumped.

It also reminded me of some of what I have witnessed in India and seen/read of some African countries. Although not a justification in itself, India has social issues of gigantic proportion as well as an immensely complicated logistic issue to manage; 23 official languages, 29 different languages spoken by at least a million people, and 40 or 50 more spoken by between one hundred thousand to under a million people. Add the ethnic and religious mosaic that exist in the subcontinent, and you can relativize their situation with a different perspective. Peru GDP per capita is only surpassed by 3 African countries: Botswana, Gabon, and South Africa. Peru is not overpopulated nor is it lacking the infrastructures of most equatorial and sub-equatorial African countries. It has a rather stable and democratically elected government. Seems to have concluded its border skirmishes with Ecuador for almost 20 years. The civil unrest between the "Sendero Luminoso" and the MRTA of the 80's and 90's have mostly vanished. The country just like most in the Global South suffers the inequalities brought upon by the ravaging effects of Spanish colonization, an ingrained cast system, and western exploitation, but none of it IMHO remotely justifies the lack of care for ones own.

Looking forward to Lima and the Andes; tomorrow we head south from Trujillo.

__________________
FEAR ===> False Expectation About Reality. GSA08
Work is just the time you have to spend between rides.